back to article BlackBerry slides crown jewels into Samsung: BBM Android app touted

BlackBerry is sharing its crown jewels - BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) - with non-BlackBerry devices for the first time: and the lucky punters are Samsung fandroids in Africa. The instant-messaging app will be free, compatible with the Android-powered Galaxy range of handsets, and offer all the important BBM functionality …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Too little, too late.

    Sorry, but they missed this boat by four years. They are now trying to tie into Android after losing 3/4 of their user base. The departures won't stop because of this.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Too little, too late.

      I can only see fail in this direction. How does cross platforming a messaging app that was the only reason most teenagers wanted a BlackBerry device help them at all? This will only accelerate the exodus, surely?

      At least now it's out on an inherently insecure platform like Android, hopefully someone can reverse engineer it and create an open source version....

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Thumb Up

        Was Re: Too little, too late.

        Completely OT but I can't help noticing comment replies are now offset to the right by about 80 pixels.

        When did this happen, El Reg, and is it a nested offset?

        Edit: Not nested. Hmmm.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Was Too little, too late.

          The nesting depth appears to be based on the length of your screen name. Anonymous Cowards have a deep nesting, I should have a very shallow one. Let's see if I'm right...

      2. goldcd

        Re: Too little, too late.

        Hmm.

        Maybe look at it the other way - you liked you BB, but all your BBM friends have jumped ship to an iphone and now you've nobody to talk to on BBM. That's a pretty good reason to bin the BB and join them.

        If your iphone buddies are using BBM and you happen to like your BB, you'll keep it, or maybe even buy a shiney new one.

        Still - suspect it's all too late, and they're all on Whatsapp already.

  2. James 51

    It will keep the brand out there any I am guessing that the best 'experience' will always be on a BB handset. Keeps their hat in the ring, espically if Samsung are paying them.

  3. Mike Brown

    and blackberry become software only. lets ask atari how that went for them

    1. Rukario

      Seemed to go well enough for Sega.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Metaphors, mixed.

    Blackberry is heading towards one of the most reliable business products that was.

    It's like if someone said black ink is not going to be made anymore because things have moved on.

    We still need a good reliable mesage and mail platform, preferable one that does not need the battery charged daily but it looks like the RIM business plan has missed some bread and butter users.

    Plenty of people need basic black ink if company X thinks there is no longer a market in the scale that currently suits it rework the business so there is still a viable source for black ink before all the users go elsewhere.

    I feel like I'm saying "this is good for use please keep doing this" and they say "it's just not where a lot of market is going so er, no"

    If we have to go smarphone we will, but probably not with RIM, we don't NEED or WANT to go smartphone from a busniess point of view but if the other options are being deprecated RIM can see us as customer-deprecated.

    1. TheVogon
      Mushroom

      Re: Metaphors, mixed.

      Most Blackberry servers connect directly to Microsoft Exchange. You can now completely cut Blackberry out of the loop and use any handset via SSL and stop paying the Blackberry network tax.

      If you want an enterprise platform with full management then Microsoft / Nokia offer a good solution for less -O2 amongst others have decided to adopt it: http://www.intomobile.com/2013/07/30/leaked-document-suggests-o2-germany/

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Metaphors, mixed.

        Never mind Exchange - My BB10 connects direct to my Qmail+Dovecot server, using password authenticated connections to IMAP(SSL, port 993) + SMTP(StartTLS, port 587) services(*).

        This setup works nicely, and always did do on my older BB Curve 8510.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Metaphors, mixed.

          Part of this is out of my hands as the Exchange is part of the parent company and BES10 is not going to happen. I know I still could use if BES was updated, but as 10 does not support current phones in the field and there are now (many) alternative mobile device management servers the market has moved on.

          Eventually the data tariff for world roaming from UK based companies should come down and so smartphones will not be the stupid risk they currently are.

          I have a working set up that suits us right now but next round of phones probably won't be Blackberries.

          For me that is a shame as they were one bit of the IT day I could leave alone and expect few surprises.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So the user "Vogon" is trying to say that the MS "tax" is less than what he calls the Blackberry "tax".

    It is very unlikely that this could be true !

    1. jonathanb Silver badge

      You have to pay the Blackberry Tax in addition to the Microsoft Tax, so it is always going to be cheaper to only pay the Microsoft Tax.

  6. and-job

    and the bad business decisions keep on going at Blackberry

    Why does a company give away the only thing that kept the bulk of their customers clinging on and not only that to a company that plans to roll it out to one of the few continents where Blackberry still has a fairly decent share of the market?

    What does this indicate for Blackberry? For me it indicates that they have all but given up on marketing their own hardware and are looking for a partner to carry the only decent part of their smart phones, the messenger. That way they can salvage the 'enterprise' part of their business. Though how they even cover that portion of the business.

    I'd be willing to bet that give it a couple of years that Samsung will make an offer for Blackberry. What better way to increase market share than to be able to market their devices carrying BBM as Blackberry devices.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is probably a test

    Seeing as how it is Africa and Samsung only, it wouldn't affect their sales all that much. Surely RIM sees the writing on the wall that Android will own the dominant share, Apple will take its 10%, and Windows Phone will be the alternative for the few percent who hate both Apple and those hippie open sourcers.

    Not much room for a 4th player, especially given that the only reason people are buying it anymore is BBM. Better to find a way to make people pay to get access to BBM before it becomes irrelevant (though I think they're already too late, as BBM only matters in a few locales these days) Presumably Samsung is paying RIM for this, and if it is successful they'll try to hit them up for it worldwide, along with the other players. Can't see Apple or Microsoft interested, but maybe Moto or HTC might be?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You know when your company is screwed when your USP gets made available for other platforms.

  9. Giles Jones Gold badge

    This reminds me a bit of a joystick company called Konix, they were developing a games console and were struggling for cash, so they gambled their whole business on the console by selling their joystick division to a rival. It didn't end well.

  10. PaulR79
    Holmes

    Samsung and only Africa?

    How long before the apk is uploaded and made available online for others and the BBM service falls over from "unprecedented demand" or something similar? I'll give it a day or two, a week tops.

  11. Nifty Silver badge

    on the other hand

    the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

    iMessage on Windows computers next?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like